A delegation of rabbis called upon Egyptian Minister Mahmoud Hassen today to plead for commutation of the death sentences recently passed on Ephraim Ben Zuri and Eliahu Hakin for the assassination of Lord Moyne.

The delegation, representing “all shades of Jewish religious belief in America,” arrived from New York to ask the Minister and the King of Egypt to “consider the extenuating circumstances” by which the actions of Ben Zuri and Hakim were motivated. They appealed to the Egyptian Minister to convey their petition for clemency and to add his own voice to the plea.

Declaring that the two youths had been “driven to desperation by the tragic plight of their people” to commit “a deplorable act of assassination,” the rabbis said: “This was not a wanton deed; this was not a crime of base motives. The victim of this regrettable act was, in their eyes, one of the authors of the tragic condition of their people.”

Following the visit of the rabbis, the Egyptian Minister told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he was given their appeal his “fullest consideration.”